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REAL STORIES OF TEEN
DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE |
Massachusetts Teen Alcohol Abuse
Prescription Drug Abuse Connecticut
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Do you have a teen
or pre-teen loved one that suffers from drug and/or alcohol abuse?
"Underage drinking presents an enormous public health issue. Alcohol
is the drug of choice among children and adolescents. Annually, about 5,000
youth under age 21 die from motor vehicle crashes, other unintentional injuries,
and homicides and suicides that involve underage drinking."
"In 2006, 1.4 million youth ages 12 to 17 needed treatment for an alcohol
problem. Of this group, only 101,000 of them received any treatment at a
specialty facility."
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism |
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ANABOLIC STEROIDS - REAL STORIES OF TEENS LIKE YOU
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Massachusetts
Teen Drug and Alcohol Abuse Facts
A real story from a kid not so different from you who have struggled
with drug addictions. Read about how this teen life changed
because of his involvement with drugs of abuse and the challenges
he faced turning his life around.
Behind the Bulk: Craig's Story
By Cate Baily
Adapted from Heads
Up: Real News About Drugs and Your Body, Scholastic, Inc.,
2003. (While the following story is real, to insure anonymity
the photo is of a model and is not of the article's subject).
Adapted from Heads
Up: Real News About Drugs and Your Body, Scholastic, Inc.,
2003. (While the following story is real, to insure anonymity
the photo is of a model and is not of the article's subject).
Every time he passed a mirror, Craig flexed his muscles. He
wanted to look "insanely big-like an action figure." "When
I walked into a room, I wanted heads to turn," he says. People
did notice Craig's 225-pound, 5-foot 9-inch frame. But what
they didn't see was the physical damage and psychological
turmoil going on inside. The story behind the bulk was five
years of steroid abuse and a struggle with muscle dysmorphia,
a condition in which a person has a distorted image of his
or her body. Men with this condition think that they look
small and weak, even if they are large and muscular.
Illegal and Grim
It all started when Craig was 18. Before a trip to Walt Disney
World in Orlando, Florida, he was feeling overweight.
He wanted to look good with his shirt off, so he resolved to
get fit. A student at Bristol Community College, in Fall
River, Massachusetts, he started going to a nearby
gym. Running on the treadmill, he slimmed down fast, losing
20 pounds in a month.
But lean wasn't Craig's ideal. "My whole priority was, I wanted
people to say, That guy's huge."
He lifted weights and experimented with steroidal supplements,
also called dietary supplements. These drugs promise to build
muscles. Despite potential risks and unclear effectiveness,
they can be bought legally over the counter at many stores.
But what Craig was looking for couldn't be bought in a store.
So he turned to anabolic steroids, drugs derived from the
male sex hormone testosterone.
Under a doctor's supervision, anabolic steroids have some
legitimate medical uses, as do corticosteroids, a different
type of steroid used to reduce swelling. But to use steroids
as Craig did, for muscle-building in a healthy body, is illegal.
This didn't stop him. Neither did the many grim potential
side effects.
Craig thought he knew exactly what he was getting into. And
like 4 percent of high school seniors (according to a 2002
NIDA-funded study) and an estimated hundreds of thousands
of adults, he took steroids anyway.
Behind the Bulk: Craig's Story
Heart Problems
Craig's appearance was that important to him. "The scale was
my enemy. Every pound meant so much to me," he says.
Craig constantly compared himself to others. He drove his
friends and family crazy asking, "Is that guy bigger than
me? What about that guy?"
He never had complete satisfaction. "Some days, I'd be arrogant,
wearing shorts to show off my quads. Other days, I'd be a
disaster. On a non-lifting day, I'd have to wear big, baggy
clothes."
Craig's steroid use escalated over time. He had begun by taking
oral steroids (pills) exclusively. But when he heard that
injectable steroids were more effective, he overcame a fear
of needles. At his worst, he was injecting three to four times
a day and taking 10 pills on top of that.
The drugs took their toll. Craig's hair fell out; acne popped
up all over his back; his face swelled. Then, something even
more serious happened: He started having chest pains.
Craig was having heart problems of the emotional sort, too.
"I don't even remember how much of a jerk I was," he says.
New Priorities
There was a lot of screaming and yelling at home, and ultimately,
the end of his marriage and a custody battle over his 1-year-old
son, Jake. Craig's wife said that Craig, then 25, couldn't
see their child until he passed a drug test. That was the
moment when everything changed for Craig. He knew he had to
quit.
On Father's Day, 2001, Craig went cold turkey. He knew he
needed help, so his parents found him a psychiatrist, who
treated him through the better part of a year.
Today, Craig's priorities have changed. He still wants to
be a head-turner, but for a different reason. "Now I'd rather
be walking into a room with my son [who is now 2] and have
people thinking, Wow, he's the greatest dad in the world."
From Scholastic,
Inc and the Scientists of the National Institute on Drug
Abuse, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services.
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